Legislation

Unfortunately, the BSVTA ran out of time to finish the bill for the ‘veterinary technician licensing’ for the 2017 legislative session. What does this mean? It means that we have most of the hard work done, and can now start the fine tuning process! We understand that there are still many questions about this bill in general. If you have any questions, please contact Marica via bsvta2017LVT@gmail.com

September 2017 Update

BSVTA along with the MVMA Veterinary Technician Committee is continuing to work on drafting a bill to present to the 2019 Montana Legislative session to license Veterinary Technicians under the Montana Board of Veterinarians. We have held regional meetings across the state to educate and obtain feedback from those that will be impacted by this.

There were a lot of the same concerns mentioned at all of the meetings:

Will there be enough Licensed techs for the demand, especially in rural areas

Will support personnel no longer be able to perform the duties they are now

Will the licensed tech be legally responsible for any support personnel that they are supervising

These are valid concerns and we hope to address all of them. We will be working through this winter to finalize a bill and hope to again hold regional meetings early 2018 to inform and gain support for the bill.

Where we go from here:

MVMA Veterinary Technician Committee and the BSVTA Legislative Committee will meet, discuss the concerns and ideas presented at the regional meetings

Formulate a plan to move forward with the draft and discuss who to approach to sponsor the bill

Identify those that may oppose the bill and reach out to them to discuss their concerns.

Begin reaching out to the public at job fairs, county fairs, etc to educate them on what a veterinary technician does.

Below are previous dates for the Montana Board of Veterinary Medicine meetings;